Five
by AlamutJones
Summary: Your fifth name day is a very important day.
1. Robb

On Robb's fifth name day, he's sent to Mikken's forge. Smiths don't usually trouble themselves with wood, but the big smith with scarred hands as big as a bear's paws hefts him easily to sit on the horn of the anvil, dusts himself off, wipes his face with the hem of his thick leather apron. Mikken hands him the wooden practice sword with a smile and all the ceremony he would have used for Lord Stark's own greatsword.

"Happy name day, little lordling. I hear you're big enough to swing it now."

Robb's mouth falls open. His very own sword! His first ever!

When he jumps down from the anvil, he staggers. Mikken catches him, laughing.

"It's heavier than you think, lad. Easy now! Both hands on the hilt, or you'll drop it on your poor toes…"

Hmmm. He might have to use both hands for a while. It's far heavier than the sticks he usually fights with. It's a proper sword, too – the blade might be wood, but it's shaped just as Ice is, and the hilt is wrapped in proper shark-skin from a great monster caught off Bear Island. Wait until Jon sees this!

Jon.

Jon is older, though not by much. His name day was three weeks ago, and Robb doesn't remember him being given a sword. Maybe if Father were here…but Father isn't here; he's fighting the iron men far away, and Mother says he won't be back for months. Not until the iron men give up and go home.

Robb frowns. He runs his fingers through tousled red hair – winter has just ended, whatever that means, and it's only recently that Mother has felt it warm enough for him to go outside without being bundled up in a hat and a cloak and rabbit-furred gloves and all manner of other things that are very boring to have to put on and take off all the time! - and a stubborn jut appears to his small chin.

"I'll share it."

Yes. They'll share the sword, at least until Father comes home. Then Jon can have one too, one that's only his alone, and then they can fight. They can be soldiers then. Or great lords, like Father. Maybe they can pretend to fight iron men together.


	2. Sansa

On Sansa's fifth name day, she feels very grown up indeed.

Mother brushes her hair out until it shines in a thick auburn wave. Not a maid, Mother herself, though Sansa knows that baby Arya – she's not _really_ a baby any more, but everyone calls her that - has been crying and screaming all night fit to wake half of Winterfell. Mother even lets her have a little dab of rosewater behind each ear, and a little of the lotion that she puts on her hands each night before she sleeps.

Then she's dressed in her finest clothes; she can _almost_ do it herself now, but some of the fastenings are tricky. Sneakily, hoping that Robb and Jon won't see to laugh at her, she does a little twirl in front of the mirror.

When she takes an extra lemon cake, no one says no. Father pulls her into his lap so she can reach them more easily. She can feel his lips curve upwards when he kisses the top of her head, and she tries not to squirm when she's tickled by his beard.

"Happy name day, Sansa. You're becoming a beautiful lady."


	3. Arya

Arya is given a doll for her fifth name day.

"Happy name day, Arya pet."

She thanks them prettily enough, but she doesn't play with it the way they expect.

She carries it around with her everywhere, and it's tucked safely under her arm when she's put to bed each night, but where Sansa has always sung to her dolls, brushed out their yarn hair, dressed them up in miniature finery that Old Nan ruins her eyesight to sew…Arya does none of this. She tumbles her doll in the mud. She sits it on the pommel of the saddle when she goes riding. She leaves it in the godswood to stare at her with button eyes as she climbs a tree. She drops it in the bath once, insists quite vehemently that she can't wash while the tub is so obviously being used, and no one – not the maids, not Catelyn, no one – quite knows how she gets away with it.

She takes it with her to King's Landing at the bottom of her trunk, next to Needle – battered and threadbare now, missing an eye, a lumpy mystery that's not really person-shaped any more.

When the fighting starts, she runs without looking back to find it.


	4. Bran

No one can find Bran on the day he turns five. They tear the castle apart looking for him. They turn every chamber upside down and inside out looking for him.

"Bran? **_Bran!"_**

"Halloooooo? Bran!"

"Brandon Stark, you come out now, do you hear me?"

Even Old Nan is calling for him, held safe and secure in Hodor's arms. Her voice is cracked and weak, it rambles like an old song heard a thousand times before, but she calls. She may or may not know which Brandon Stark she's calling for.

Ned very deliberately doesn't mention it to Catelyn, but he tells Vayon Poole to lower a net on a long rope and trawl through the well. Just in case.

He himself searches the godswood, for once in his life unsettled by the silent stare of carved red eyes.

 _Please, please…let Bran be found..._

Softly, softly…there's a sudden rustle in the leaves of the great weirwood, and a very small snore.

Ned breathes deeply and gathers up his sleeping son in his arms, taking him gently from where he slumps cradled in the highest, impossible branches of the heart tree.


	5. Rickon

Rickon's fifth name day passes unremarked.

He huddles by the small fire, wraps his arms around Shaggydog's great black neck. He sniffs loudly; he has a cold, and has been miserable and stuffed up for days.

"Osha? When can we go home?"

Rickon Stark – Lord Rickon, now, if what she fears is true and all the others are gone - doesn't know when his name day is.


End file.
